Cameroon’s Silicon Mountain: Its History, Resilience and Future

Buea, a town on the slopes of Mountain Cameroon, about an hour from Douala (the economic capital of Cameroon) has become known as Cameroon’s startup capital, called Silicon Mountain. The town located in the South West Region is home to the first anglophone university in Cameroon, the University of Buea. The university is a central element in the town’s journey to becoming Cameroon’s most prominent technology hub.

The history of Silicon Mountain dates back to 2006 when a group of young people which included Churchill Nanje Mambe (Founder, Njorku), Fua Tse (Founder, Zinger Systems), Tata Cyril, among others developed a website called PassGCE. Many of them had met at the University of Buea and cyber cafes around town. The website served as an online community for students and examiners to help the former pass the GCE exams. The website was initially publishing GCE results online for free which a good number of people across Anglophone Cameroon liked. The government however did not like it and asked that the website be shut down. The team of young people who founded PassGCE then went on to start the Afrovision Group (led by Churchill Nanje Mambe) to provide web development services to local Click here to read entire article